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Introduction
There is nothing new about K-8 schools. K-8 schools and one-room schoolhouses were popular throughout the 19th century and for the first 40 years of the 20th century. Like a pendulum swinging back and forth, a revival of K-8 schools in the 21st century is phasing out the junior high concept in some places.
Keith Look, a researcher with the Philadelphia Education Fund, states there is a growing body of research that shows K-8 schools to be more effective in improving student achievement in the middle-level grades (2002). Data collected in Philadelphia shows students from K-8 schools performing better on standardized tests and displaying higher GPAs in ninth grade than do students from middle schools. K-8 schools also are popular groupings among private and parochial schools, and they are common overseas, especially in European school systems.
The middle school model still predominates in public schools in our nation. There were more than 12,000 middle schools in 1993, three middle schools for every junior high school. The National Center for Education Statistics data for the 1999 school year showed a total of 26,130 elementary schools serving students through fifth or sixth grade, compared with 3,249 K-8 schools (Pardini 2002, p. 8).
Still, many school leaders whose districts are returning to the K-8 model believe they are part of a growing movement. The young teens in middle schools "tend to be hormones in sneakers running around," Ellen Savitz, Philadelphia's deputy chief academic officer for school development, said. The school system "started to treat them like mini-high school kids, and they were not ready."
There are many middle schools that are productive and doing a wonderful job. But many K-8 schools are getting calls from middle school principals for information about K-8 successes and about conversion to K-8 schools. There is much interest around the country in the revival of K-8 schools.
Middle-Level Education Models
The one-room schoolhouse, the nation's first model for middle-level education, practiced many of the innovations that one reads about today. For example, students received a considerable amount of individual attention in the one-room schools that were common in rural America in the 19th and early 20th centuries. Cooperative learning, which is being touted as a promising education practice today, was commonplace,...